Arguably the world's greatest orchestra is coming to London, and with Simon
Rattle, an English conductor. Ivan Hewett tries to get to the root of the
Berlin mystique.

When news broke more than a year ago that the Berlin Philharmonic would be visiting London for four whole days, it was greeted with the kind of tremulous excitement that normally precedes a Papal visit. What really astonished everyone was that the South Bank Centre and Barbican Centre had agreed to share the concerts between them. Some said this was a shining example of old rivals burying the hatchet for the greater good of art, though more cynical souls said it was just a canny way of sharing the back-breaking costs.

Either way, it's an unprecedented event, which inevitably prompts the question: why is it only this orchestra that could bring about such a miracle? There's no single answer, which is what makes the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra such a fascinating cultural phenomenon. Its pre-eminence is due to a whole tangle of causes, some to do with giant world-historical forces like the Cold War, some with the vagaries of the record business, some with a specifically Berlin civic pride. Giant personalities have also played a role, putting their stamp on the orchestra at a vital moment in its history.

And running like a ground-bass beneath all this, from one decade and century to the next, is the famed Berlin sound and tradition. Everyone insists these things are real, but getting a definition is almost impossible. The sound is not so tangy and flavoursome as the Vienna Philharmonic, where the oboists and horn players perform on unique instruments and jobs have often been handed down from father to son, like some medieval craft guild. But there is a depth and graininess that surely springs from the virtuoso intelligence of each player. This quality was noted as long ago as 1895, when the orchestra was only 12 years old. At that time orchestral players were an exploited bunch, but Artur Nikisch, a fiery, demanding character who was the orchestra's chief conductor for 27 years, encouraged a new pride. "Each and every member of a first-class orchestra has earned the right to call himself an artist," he said, and every BPO player since has taken those words to heart.

You'd think a bunch of 125 players who are all "artists" would be an unruly bunch to manage, and so they are – and always have been. The fascinating thing is that in spite of that – or because of it – they've chosen wilful, even tyrannical characters as their chief conductors. Nikisch, Furtwängler, the Romanian Celibidache – these were proper "monsters of the podium". Then in 1954 came the most monstrous of the lot, Herbert von Karajan. For decades, from the mid-1960s to the late 1980s, it seemed as if classical music itself was in the hands of an all-powerful triumvirate – the silver-haired Karajan, the orchestra, and the famous yellow label of Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft, the Hamburg-based record company with which the orchestra had an exclusive contract.

There's a certain kind of nostalgic classical music lover who looks back to the "yellow-label years" as a golden age. In money terms they certainly were. The orchestra was cutting 24 LPs a year, and contributing 25 per cent of DG's entire turnover. But there was something fake about those years, like a body pumped up on steroids. Berlin was on the front line of the Cold War, and the orchestra's home, the Philharmonie, was only yards from the wall itself. The city needed cultural icons to show the East how superior it was, and there was none more iconic than the BPO. Money was poured into the orchestra, which by the 1970s was the best-paid in the world.

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Only one thing was missing from this picture of complacent, overfed success; any sense that to grow and prosper, a tradition has to be constantly reinvigorated by the new. This was certainly present in the orchestra's early days. Furtwängler is always touted as the great interpreter of the Germanic canon, but in fact he was equally passionate about new music. Whereas Karajan's view of contemporary music was basically cynical; it was a way of levering extra prestige or funding or media hype for an event, but not something to be taken seriously in its own right. By the late 1980s, one has the sense of a great institution paralysed in creative deep-freeze, with Karajan and the orchestra in a state of increasing mutual suspicion.

With the arrival of Claudio Abbado in 1989, a thaw set in. The thoughtful, other-worldly Italian caused dismay among some players with his inspirational but disorderly rehearsal methods, and Berlin audiences were equally dismayed by the large doses of severely Left-wing Italian modernism Abbado subjected them to. But despite its troubles the relationship produced some stunning performances and recordings, particularly of Mahler.

With Abbado's departure in 1998 it was clear the orchestra was at a crossroads. The Cold War was fading into history, the bottom had dropped out of the classical CD market, and the now reunified Berlin was oversupplied with orchestras and buzzing with cultural energies that owed nothing to "great traditions". When everything is changing, the temptation is to take refuge in security. That was the instinct of quite a few players, who had on their doorstep a conductor who declared himself to be the heir to Furtwängler, and lobbied hard for the job – Daniel Barenboim.

But to their own surprise, the orchestra did the bold thing. They elected a tousle-haired Scouser who'd made his reputation in music that for the BPO was decidedly marginal: Stravinsky, Szymanowski, Gershwin. He had a passion for lots of living English and American composers Berliners had barely heard of. But he was a risk, because in the Austro-German heartland of classical music – Mahler excepted – he seemed much less at home.

Now, 12 years on, it is becoming clear that the bold move was also a wise one. Rattle is genuinely collegial with all the orchestral players, but not too much so. The players are pleased to have at the helm a conductor who works them hard, and knows how to pace a three-hour rehearsal. He pays constant tribute to the players' stellar musicianship as individuals, and has learnt that directness goes down much better than polite British circumlocution.

Of course, no high-profile conductor-orchestra relationship is complete without dark mutterings in the press that the honeymoon is over. Rattle has said candidly that the players are not the easiest bunch to work with. But we know from his 18-year stint leading the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra that this is a man who is always in for the long haul. He has a very sure instinct about when to give ground and when to be stubborn.

Slowly but surely, the lineaments of the Rattle era at the Berlin Philharmonic are emerging. Financially, the orchestra is totally secure. So important is it to Berlin's status that the city jealously guards its funding, refusing to let the federal government in on the act (the contrast with British orchestral funding, which is like a game of pass-the-unwanted-parcel, is telling). Its global reach has been massively enhanced by its online Digital Concert Hall, watched on giant screens the world over.

All of which is admirable, but what really counts is that "Berlin mystique", to which the partnership with Rattle has given a new twist. On the one hand, there's the orchestra itself: an immensely proud, not to say arrogant institution, which knows exactly where its roots are; on the other, a brilliantly talented musician who seems not to be rooted anywhere.

Rattle is the perfect conductor to lead the BPO in the post-modern age. He's interestingly classless, and comes with no ideological baggage; even his accent has become impossible to place. He's not an avant-gardist like Boulez, or an heir to the Furtwängler tradition, like Barenboim, or a devotee of "period performance" like William Christie. But he somehow combines all these things, and in his best moments – when his sheer joy in music-making takes wing – he transcends them. A successful marriage of opposites is a rare thing, but in the case of Rattle and the BPO, it seems to be working.

The Berlin Philharmonic appears at the South Bank Centre as part of the Shell Classic International Series on February 20 and 23, and at the Barbican Centre on February 21 and 22. Returns only.